History Main / CanaryInACoalMine

* MyHeroAcademia uses a nonliving example when Todoroki and Yayorozu are fighting [[PowerNulifier Eraserhead]] as part of an exam. Since they first don't know where he is, Yayorozu kept continually making small objects - when they stop coming out, that means he is near.

-> ''If you're cooking with gas in your camper, you need ventilation. Or, you're like a canary in a cage choking on the fumes. Mmm, canaries!''

[[folder:Web Comics]]

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!!Examples

* In the ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' episode [=Pu239=], a desperate worker falsified his records to state that his body had a high enough prosthetics count to work as a scrubber inside an abandoned nuclear facility. When he casually mentioned this on the job, a horrified coworker gave him a square piece of film and told him to ''get the hell out of there'' if it ever turned pitch black.

* {{ComicBook/Justice League of America Rebirth}}- {{SelfDemonstrating/Lobo}} references this when {{ComicBook/Black Canary}} tells him that Batman has asked him to join the new league, saying "Ain't canaries supposed to go to the coal mines to die? That's what it said on your trading card, anyway."

[[folder:Comic Strip]]

--> '''Dilbert:''' I guess he knew that.

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* In ''Film/TheBirds,'' the two lovebirds Cathy keeps in a cage get agitated at the same time the birds outside the house do, meaning that the characters can use them as a warning for when the attacks are about to happen.

-->'''Pa''': All I know is, where a candle can't live, I can't.

[[folder:Live-Action Television]]

* Music/ThePolice song "Canary In a Coalmine" compares the subject of the song to one of these (as if you couldn't tell from the title) due to his or her neurosis.

* Spoofed on the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Fry Am The Eggman", when Bender lights up a cigar in a pub. A man on the next table has a canary, but it's the man who succumbs to the fumes, while the canary remains alive.

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':

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* In series VIII of ''Series/RedDwarf'', Lister volunteers the main characters for the Canaries, which he mistakes for a singing group. It's explained to him via this trope that the Canaries are actually [[RedshirtArmy expendable convict soldiers]] who are sent to scout out derelict spacecraft. If none of them are killed, the important people are allowed to go on board.

* ''Anime/JapanSinks2020'' has Ayumu noticing some dead birds on the ground as she was making her way down into a valley. [[spoiler:Moments later, her friend Nanami, who had gone ahead of her, drops dead on the spot: it is revealed that the earthquakes striking Japan was creating [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazuku mazukus]], pockets of extremely high carbon dioxide concentrations that are invariably fatal to humans and animals.]]

See also EvilDetectingDog.

* ''VideoGame/Deponia'': In the alley, there is a parrot that when examined, you are told by Hannek that it is used to detect fumes in the mines. Upon which, Rufus asks what they do when that happens. Hannek's response is that they get a new parrot.

* In series VIII of ''Series/RedDwarf'', the main characters are put into a scouting unit called the Canaries, for this reason.

* Referenced in one ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' strip, where a worker who was a former coal miner gets reassigned so he's close to Wally. An observing Dilbert says, "Better get a canary." Creator/ScottAdams clarified this punchline in one of his anthologies, noting that "miners use canaries to sense [[{{Gasshole}} gas]]..."

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/SabrinaTheAnimatedSeries'' had Sabrina and her friends go on a camping trip while being led by her Uncle Quigley. There, they hear a story from Harvey about a pair of canaries that were abandoned in an old mine when the miners evacuated the mine after it collapsed. [[spoiler: When the canaries are found by Sabrina, Salem, and Harvey, it turns out that the canaries were alive and well, but actually [[DudeNotFunny dared each other into pretending to be suffocating]], which scared the miners at the same time that the mine was about to collapse.]]

* ''Film/{{Zygote}}'': Canary Class [[ArtificialHumans synthetics]] like Barklay are used for mining operations in exactly this way, conditioned to regard themselves as more expendable than the higher class humans. [[spoiler:However Barklay is told that [[TomatoInTheMirror she's actually human]]. Turns out synthetics are too expensive to waste, so the MegaCorp buys a couple of synthetics to fool the OSHA inspectors, then makes up the numbers with cheaper human orphans purchased at a young age and raised to believe they are synthetics. Furthermore Quinn points out that using a synthetic for this trope would defeat the purpose, as an ArtificialHuman wouldn't die on hitting a pocket of methane gas, whereas the human Canaries would.]]

-->'''Zelda''': Chirpy? Canary’s dead, let’s get out of here. Oh push Aardvark, push!